Globe Telecom's 2005 annual report card

Manila: I just got the news from Cebu that the reshuffling at the Cebu Customs Bureau where Cebu Customs Collector Lourdes Mangaoang was supposed to be replaced by a Grace Caringal from Subic has been stopped. This clearly shows someone high was targeting the position of Ms. Mangaoang, but obviously, they couldn't get her out through the proper channels. We laud this move because too many people with bad intentions wanted her out of their way for you know why. More of this in the next few days when I come back to Cebu.

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It has become an annual event for the Cebu and Mindanao media to attend Globe Telecom's annual stockholders meeting. By inviting the media outside of Metro Manila to this annual corporate event, Globe Telecom is the first and the only multinational company that believes that Manila is not the Philippines and the Philippines is not Manila. Globe Telecom's aggressive programs for the year 2005 has now reached 97% of those who live throughout the rest of the Philippine archipelago. I recall that exactly a year ago, we were in Subic with the same group when Pope John Paul II died, and we had to revise our columns.

Well, the big news from Globe Telecom's officials led by Jaime Augusto Ayala and Pres. Gerry Ablaza was that, Globe's performance for the year 2005 made a net income of P10.3 billion, thanks largely to its aggressive infrastructure program, which has now reached 5,159 cellsites, allowing Globe's network coverage to reach 93% of all municipalities, touching 97% of the Filipino population. That means only 3% of our people, those who live in the deepest forest or outlying islands are not within the reach of Globe.

Thanks to Globe's entry into the telecommunications industry, telephone density in the Philippines has increased from 1% in the year 1996 to 40% in the year 2005. Globe counts to some 13 million subscribers. In his speech, Globe CEO Jaime Augusto Ayala said that for 2006, Globe Telecom will need to reinvent itself to keep up with the competition going into the next generation of cellphone technology, 3G, VOIP so that Globe users experience seamless coverage anywhere in the world. Indeed, 3G is the new frontier in cellular telephony, while it is still largely a niche market, who knows, pretty soon those rates will drop to make 3G calls affordable.

During the meeting, someone asked about the damage done by the New People's Army (NPA) to the Globe cellsites because this was not featured in the annual report. Globe executives did give this issue some kind of prominence so as not to encourage the NPA from doing further damage, but as Globe Pres. Gerry Ablaza told us in the presscon, today some 50 Globe Telecom cellsites have been bombed and destroyed in war waged by the NPA in the last three years now.

When Mr. Ablaza stated that this was due to fact that Globe continues to refuse paying the NPA's revolutionary tax. I asked him to comment if whether the other telecoms were paying revolutionary taxes, but he refused to answer that. Perhaps the bigger question to ask is, why isn't there a media outcry on Globe's troubles with the NPA?

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We've already begun advocating for the use of Ethanol fuel for all mass transportation systems, like jeepneys, buses or tricycles. Meanwhile, there are other alternative uses of fuel that we ought to study closely. Today, in Baybay, Leyte, I was invited by Mr. Al Dimapilis EON Stakeholder Relations Firm to attend the world premier of the first Stove powered entirely by plant oil.

Two German firms, BSH BOSCH und Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH have joined together in scientific and environmental partnership to design and build an innovative plant-oil stove to generally conserve resources and protect the environment by using Plant oil as an alternative fuel because it is cheap and abundant in many rural areas in developing countries unlike kerosene or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). It is burnt without harming human health and is carbon dioxide (CO2) neutral.

Just look at the benefits of this technology. You can get your fuel source from the plants that you grow. That means you no longer need expensive gas or LPG to fuel your cooking needs. Best of all, aside from this fuel source being carbon dioxide free, the people in far-flung areas would no longer chop wood in our forest because there is alternative fuel.

I'm glad that technology is catching up, that we do not need fossilized fuel after all to get energy. It can be extracted even from plants, just like Ethanol that comes from sugar or even corn. Now if only we have Energy officials who can sit down with their counterparts in Agriculture so they can map out the better ways to help get cheaper and efficient energy!

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